Foreign Words.—The same applies to words from foreign languages. Undoubtedly they are valuable in giving color, but this value is too often attained at too high cost in distraction and is frequently attainable through other means without loss. The damage they do is by no means theoretical, for readers do not hesitate to complain to editors on this score. I do not remember their doing so in the case of "big words," for naturally a man doesn't go to the trouble to admit he doesn't understand words in his own language, while often rather proud of not understanding foreign words. Sufficient color through foreign words can be gained by using only a few, even if these few are repeated, and by using only those instantly clear from the context or from unmistakable similarity to the corresponding English word (like "fader") if context heads the reader in that general direction. There is comparatively only a slight risk in using those that are very generally known, like "ami" or "mon chère" also ejaculations that are evidently such and therefore make no demand on the reader's understanding.
Classical, Historical and Fictional References.—The danger, of course, is that the reader may not be familiar with the reference, knows that he is not, and therefore becomes conscious of himself as a reader. Another risk is that, being familiar with them, his mind drifts off to them more than the writer intended. Used with discretion, they may have value, but they are generally not used with discretion and, generally speaking, a story is the better for telling itself without covering part of the ground by means of what are practically quotations from other stories. Also, there are other dangers than that of simple distraction, which will be covered under other heads.
Unusual Proper Names.—To put this case concretely, here is the list of the male characters in one single story I read yesterday in a manuscript: "Tom Goit," "Braith," "Grahame," "Tim Stine," "Linus Kime," "Jestock," "Bissonet," "Heads," "Arnet," "Jimson," "Kliedjorn," "Jed Willoughby," "Andy Meenal," "Yard Sant," "Simson," "Angus Stell," "Gant," "Beezaw," "Colin Corbin," "Happy Falls," "Jim Light," "Rafe Gillen," "Charley Jance." It is probably not entirely complete, but was made by running through the pages and taking all names noted, usual or unusual. Can any human being read that story without having his attention distracted to the fact that those names are violently unusual? Doesn't the fact that they are unusual add an air of unreality to the whole story—story-book names instead of real people's names? Won't many readers be definitely irritated by the artificiality and mannerism? Aside from this and similar breakings of illusion it was a good story and will undoubtedly be printed somewhere. Its author is a successful writer of fiction. But hasn't the story lost very appreciably through that amazing collection of proper names?
On the other hand there is a certain advantage in the use of such names in some types of story and for some audiences, though not in the story from which the above are taken or for the audience at which it is aimed. Some readers like proper names that are baldly fictional and unreal; that is what fiction means to them—unreality, utter difference from their own lives. These are much the same readers who like their stories filled with duchesses, earls and ancestral halls. A generation or two ago these were a rather large group, and larger still before that, but nowadays folks are more sophisticated in their fiction and need illusions that run more nearly with reality. And, at best, isn't it rather a cheap method of abnormality?
Unusual names serve also to make the characters more vivid to the reader's mind, but this method of characterization is a crude one that should give way to better ones entailing no risk.
In humorous stories of a certain type they are entirely legitimate. On the other hand, look carefully at your proper names lest, in a serious story, you give a character a name like "Hencastle" that brings a grin where you do not wish to have a grin.
Alliterative proper names are another phase of the evil in the case of readers sufficiently sophisticated to note the alliteration at all.
Avoid proper names that are difficult or ambiguous of pronunciation. Don't give your characters the same names as those of real people prominent in the public eye unless a name is so common that it is not likely to distract the reader from the story's illusion through thoughts of the real person; even a too similar name is risky in some cases, e.g. any variation of the unusual name "Roosevelt."
Dialect.—While belonging more properly under later heads it serves, too, as a simple distraction in itself. Its advantages are obvious, yet some readers will read no story with dialect in it and some magazines will print none.
Mistakes.—A typographical error, a mistake in spelling, punctuation or English is sure to check and drag out of the illusion any reader who notes it. Such matters are definitely the editor's responsibility, but he is far from infallible and the author would, in most cases, profit by safeguarding against him. An editor will be grateful, particularly the assistant editor who edits copy and reads proof. In our own office we can quote you lots of rules as to correct English—and show you violations of them in our own pages.
Mistakes in fact and statement will be considered later.
Unusual Mannerisms of Style.—Distinction is to be made between, on the one hand, individuality and deliberate shaping of style to attain a particular atmosphere or suit particular material and, on the other hand, mannerisms that are necessary to neither of these ends and harmful in distracting attention to themselves. No one can possibly draw a definite line between these two groups, but a warning is badly needed against forgetting the danger. It is a question for laboratory test. Try to get your friends—or better, your enemies—to read your story with this point in view, or do not mention it beforehand and cross-examine them afterward as to what mannerisms registered on their attention. And don't hand-pick your critics or "dogs" from any one class or group unless you mean your story to appeal to no other.
A novelette, which had to be rewritten because of it, used the following mannerism hundreds and hundreds of times until each recurrence was not only a distraction but an agony: "he ran, and running, laughed aloud," "he sang, and singing, voiced his mood," "he fought, and fighting, worked toward the house." Another writer habitually, in the words following or introducing a line of dialogue, carries the legitimate "he said," "he urged," "he encouraged," etc., to such distracting extremes as "he frightened," "he anguished," "she informed," "he recognized," "he remorsed." Of late years there has developed the fad of saying "the heart, or soul, or head, of him" for "his heart," "his soul," "his head," etc. This variation from the usual has, in prose, a very limited field in which its advantage exceeds its damage.
A mannerism of style is warranted if it so fits into a story that it is an integral and practically unnoted part of it; otherwise it is a harmful factor. A better adapted mannerism could have gained the desired effect without making of itself an obtrusion.
Fiction as a Vehicle.—There are two ways of writing a story. One is to write fiction only; the other is to combine fiction with something else. Readers like both and both are legitimate, but the latter is of course not pure fiction; fiction is merely the vehicle for the other thing or things. One of the greatest evils among present-day fiction writers is the failure to make this distinction and keep it clearly in mind. Too often a writer does not realize that there is anything else mixed with his fiction; consequently his product is not straight or well-built fiction nor is the fiction part of it a carefully made vehicle for the other thing.
To make fiction serve any end other than its own is very likely to weaken its value as fiction, and before a writer thus weakens it he should make very sure that the advantages gained from making it carry something else compensate for that weakening. If he wishes to give his reader, for example, some direct philosophy, well and good, but he should—and seldom does—weigh the attendant loss.
There is a second distinction that should be made. When I say "plus something else" I mean plus something else that is added as a load is put upon a wagon, not something that comes to the reader as a result of the fiction. To say in a story "a man may prosper exceedingly on a policy of utter selfishness, but, having all his life taken without giving, in the end he gives for what he took" is putting a load on the wagon. To let the story itself say that, merely to tell a story that illustrates and brings home that truth without mentioning it specifically (unless through the mouth of a character), is only letting straight fiction perform a natural office, though a natural office that can be overworked at the cost of a well balanced whole. The former is the easier and less artistic method, and far too many writers follow it far too often. Its evil is that of any "load"—it breaks the illusion, tending to make the reader think of the person who hands him this bit of philosophy, of himself, of the world in general, instead of the story world only.
The present-day fad of opening a story with a bit of philosophy, though objectionable on another score, does little damage to the illusion, since it comes before the spell begins and may even serve as an intermediate step.
Obtrusion of Author.—This is a crying evil, a serious damage to the illusion. The author has no more business to appear concretely in his story than a playwright has upon the stage when his play is being acted. Once in ten thousand times he may himself be sufficiently interesting to atone for the wreck of the story's spell; the other nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine times he is a mistake, a bull in a china-shop. The following, all taken from submitted manuscripts, range from crude to subtle obtrusions:
"At the time of which I wish to speak"
"you must understand"
"consider the case of John Holt. But first
consider the environment"
"see him"
"and it is the correct word"
"it is necessary to add, in explanation of
this seeming paradox"
"had, somewhat grumbingly, be it said,"
"he had, for instance, tried,"
"and disappears from this story,"
Each of these compels a reader to realize that some one is talking to him. You can't be carried away in a dream when conscious that some one is telling it to you. Sometimes the point is made that an author's obtrusion puts the reader on more intimate terms with him. What has that to do with fiction as such? If the author didn't obtrude himself, the reader would have no interest in intimacy or non-intimacy with him. If the author is the one out of ten thousand, all right; otherwise, not.
If a writer must express philosophy or opinions specifically, let him use the legitimate device of the first-person narrative, taking care that the narrator is cast in such character as to make these opinions natural to him. Or else baldly use fiction as vehicle only, making his story a conversazione.
There is another legitimate device. Kipling ends a story with "I think he was right." But he begins that story with "When I was telling you of." In other words, he tells the story in an undeveloped frame or brackets. Partly by leaving the frame undeveloped and impersonal, his skill is sufficient to make you feel that it is not Kipling himself who talks to you, but some unknown participator in the action of the story or an onlooker. It is really, in effect, a first-person narrative with the privileges of such.
First-person narratives, unless presented as addressed to a fictitious audience such as the narrator's children or grandchildren, of course permit a fairly free direct address to or at the reader, since the writer poses as the actual teller. Incidentally, however, it is not consistent with his telling what goes on inside the characters unless made plain to him as one of them.
As found in submitted manuscripts, the great majority of authors' obtrusions seem unconsidered, and are accompanied by the damage to be expected from walking in the dark. The remainder, almost without exception, seem ill-considered. One exception out of a thousand instances is not a heavy average.
CHAPTER VI
CLEARNESS
Anything that is not clear to a reader either causes him to skip it and therefore miss part of the story's substance and effect, or else makes him puzzle. In either case the illusion suffers. If he puzzles, he has to use up attention on a point the writer had counted on being clear, his mind is on the puzzle, not obsessed by the spell; the story's flow is stopped, the reader is conscious of himself, his difficulty and limitations, perhaps also of the author as the cause of his troubles—in a word, the reader has got away. Every time you confuse him you lose him. Deliberate mystification is a writer's prerogative; having all his plans upset by mystification where none was expected or desired is a calamity.
Author's Ostrich Habit.—Naturally enough, authors are inclined to a kind of reversed ostrich habit. If a point was clear to them when they wrote it, they take for granted that it must be clear to the reader. They forget that they have full knowledge of all that is or happens in their fiction, while the reader can know only what comes to him from the printed page. Often when an editor points out an unclearness they argue with him, blissfully ignoring the fact that the editor is himself a reader and that the reader found it unclear. Possibly the author proves his case—that is, he points out other passages in the story which do clear up the unclearness if the reader remembers them and makes the correct inferences and connections. The fact that, in the actual test, these passages failed to produce the intended results on the reader slides off the author like water off a duck. Still less does he get the idea that a reader shouldn't be distracted from the story by being compelled to go into a more or less complicated reasoning process in order to get what should have been handed to him on a platter. Even if several editor-readers found the point unclear, he stands by his guns.
Aside from the author's vastly superior knowledge of his material and intentions, many of his readers may be his mental inferiors. Also many of them may not be so interested in his story as he is and so give it less close attention than he expects. Part of them habitually "skip" through a story and demand a plain and shining path. Certainly no one mind is exactly like another and all readers will not respond as does the author to any given set of stimuli if even a tiny loophole is left open. A rule given playwrights is that if it is essential to impress a basic point on the audience, the point must be made at least three times in the first scene. So extreme a rule is not needed for fiction, but the necessity of clearness, even on minor points, is no less pressing.
It is a natural and common mistake to overestimate the average reader's interest and attention and his ability and willingness to solve puzzles when he sits down to read a story. A writer usually forgets that to the reader his is merely one story out of dozens or hundreds recently read, out of thousands and ten thousands total. The writer's friend-critics have a personal interest in him and a very special interest in his story that carry them smilingly over many obstacles; to the average reader the writer probably means nothing whatsoever personally—quite possibly his name at the head of the story was not even read—and the story is merely one of very many. Any special attention to it must be won by the writer's skill and careful work.
Talbot Mundy, knowing in advance the general lines of this book, has furnished me from his voluminous reading with various quotations bearing on points covered, among them this from Quintillian:
"Care should be taken, not that the reader may understand if he will, but that he must understand, whether he will or not."
And from Whitman:
"Nothing can make up for the lack of definiteness."
Ambiguous Words and Sentences.—Any good text-book on English covers the subject and most writers would profit by the study thereof. If when they try a short story out on their friends they would ask for practical detailed criticism on such points as this, they would get laboratory results far more valuable than the proverbially undependable criticism of friends on the story as a whole.
Proper Names.—Be careful to give your characters names no two of which are similar. The reader meets them for the first time and has the task of identifying each name with the proper character whenever it occurs. Why confuse him with two characters named "Lowe" and "Rowe," "Towne" and "Browne," "Morgan" and "Mordan," or even "Hadley" and "Hatfield"? Yet many and many a manuscript contains this needless stumbling-block for readers.
The same mistake is made in names of places, ships, and so on.
Another maddening and very common practise among writers is to use sometimes a character's last name, sometimes his first. Even a short story with only two or three characters can be made a needless omelette of confusion, for this bad habit is extended to include titles and nick-names or familiar forms of the full names. Consider "Doctor James Stanley," "Edward D. Gage" and "Captain John S. Tompkins." "Gage" is a lawyer and often called "Judge" by his intimates. "Tompkins'" lack of height earns him the usual "Shorty." The author uses some of each, possibly for the sake of "variety," and the three characters become, to the reader, an army and hopelessly confused—"Stanley," "Ed," "Cap," "Gage," "Shorty," "Jim," "Judge," "John," "Doc," "Tompkins," "James," "Johnnie," "Edward." Such a confusion is alone enough to ruin the blissfully unconscious writer's story. For the simple reason that readers can only half know what is going on. Yet in practise it is a very common mistake.
Technical and Foreign Words; Classical, Historical and Fictional References and Allusions.—The confusion arises when a reader happens not to understand the word, even from the context, or to be unfamiliar with the reference. Writers seem to take it for granted that all readers will grasp the meaning without effort or delay. Or mystify deliberately to air their culture. The warning seems silly when set down on paper but is warranted by the number of offenses in actual practise.
Naming Characters Early.—Sometimes an effect of reality is gained by not at once naming characters in a story, giving the reader as it were, the effect of looking down upon a new world whose figures are no more known to him than they would be at first sight in a real scene. Generally, however, a reader is likely to resent being left to follow, for even a few pages, the fortunes of a nameless person. Include particularly the narrator in a first-person story.
Dialogue.—Over and over again an editor is compelled to go back over a passage of dialogue in manuscript and "count out" with finger or pencil until he finds a line that is definitely connected with a particular speaker. The characters are not sufficiently individualized to be recognized from their lines, context fails to identify, the lines are not labeled with the speakers' names and the least flicker of attention leaves one lost at the end of a dozen or even half a dozen speeches. Sometimes the author himself gets lost and mixes or omits. An ordinary reader doesn't have to "count out" as does the editor—he is more likely to snort and pass on, with part of the story lost to him and its net register on him badly damaged. If he doesn't snort and pass on he stops to puzzle it out. Why injure a story by so crude an omission?
Too Many Characters.—The heading is self-explanatory. All the characters in any story are utter strangers to the reader until he becomes familiar with them; he can keep clear in his mind only a limited number of new acquaintances all made in the course of a few minutes; the kind of writer who uses many characters is usually the kind who is unable to individualize them with any vividness. A novel or novelette gives greater scope, but in a short story it may almost be given as a general rule that the fewer the characters, the stronger the story, not counting characters used in blocks, such as mobs, armies, spectators. Structure and proportion, as well as clearness, are of course involved.
Dialect and Slang.—Neither is familiar in all places or to all classes, and on the point of clearness both are to be condemned. Their advantages will be considered later.
The stupidest blunder in handling dialect is to misspell a word without really changing its pronunciation, thus confusing the reader's eye yet gaining only the appearance of dialect—and the reader's irritation.
Contradictions and Inconsistencies.—Their variety is infinite and their occurrence in submitted manuscripts frequent beyond the belief of those who read only the corrected printed page. A woman changes the color of her eyes; with a conversation that could occupy only one minute there is coincident action that couldn't possibly be compressed into five, or, very commonly, a bland lapse of even more time without any action; a six-shooter emits seven shots without reloading; of a party of fourteen, five turn back and ten remain; a character uses a word that would never be used by such a person in real life, or acts, without explanation, entirely at variance with his nature as the author has pictured it; the hero acts on information he has not yet received; a man's name changes during the story; a woman opens a door already open; a character goes somewhere else without leaving or becomes present without arriving. When you encounter such a break in a printed story doesn't it jar you out of the illusion, lessen your respect for the author, and therefore permanently damage his story's hold on you?
There can be no general rule for correction. When not the result of sheer carelessness and indifference, such errors are due to the author's failure to visualize, to live his scenes himself. This failure in some cases is due to real inability or comparative inability, but in very many cases to attention so obsessed and ridden by principles of plot, rules for character drawing, regulations for niceties of style, application of technique in general and requirements of various magazines that there's no brain-force left for making the story world a really convincing and natural one in its all important details.
Holding Reader to Correct Plot Line.—In other words, proportion and emphasis. Briefly stated, what is meant here is clearness of path for the reader through the incidents of the story, so that his mind will follow or leap ahead only in the exact direction the author wishes for the fullest effectiveness of his story. This will be taken up in detail later.
Simplicity.—The following from Schopenhauer (thanks to Mr. Mundy) gives us the heart of the matter:
"Nothing is easier than to write so that no one can understand; just as, contrarily, nothing is more difficult than to express deep things in such a way that every one must necessarily grasp them."
Yet to most of those sending manuscripts to magazines simplicity, particularly simplicity in words and style, is very pointedly something to be avoided whatever else is done or left undone. The twin cause of this appalling idea, this curse stupidly laid upon American fiction, is the firmly rooted belief that literature must be an expression that is, first, unnatural, second, learned, recondite, even sophomoric. In its lowest and very common form it is no more than the crude idea that editors must be very scholarly persons and that therefore they would scorn any manuscript that didn't have a lot of "big words" in it. The simple language of Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, the Bible and other really enduring classics loom before their eyes, but no, they follow the jack-o'-lantern of "big words." They have this excuse—much of the fiction published in magazines and books is fairly rotten with "big words," a reflection on editors and reading public as well as writers.
The hard practical argument against "dictionary words" is that most people find them difficult to understand or at least lack the definite, vivid, full connotation for them that they have for the simpler and more common words of our very rich language. Such words reduce the size of an author's fully appreciative audience. Another point is that the writer who doesn't know any better than to make a business of using them is very often himself lacking in an understanding of their finer shades of meaning. A third point is that, unless such words are part of his own every-day vocabulary he is being unnatural in using them and thereby ruins his chances of attaining real style or producing real literature. Also he gives through them to his story an unnatural, artificial quality, an air of being forced. In the eyes of all those with a real understanding of real literature he makes of himself a plain darned fool.
But can there be no great literature without simplicity? None that couldn't be greater with it. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points; any deviation from it is lost motion, unnecessary; the best literature contains no lost motion and nothing that is unnecessary. But is not a "big word" sometimes the straight line? Yes, but for one case of this kind there are twenty when it is not. Sometimes the author uses it for a simpler phrasing not sufficiently mastered to come to mind at need; sometimes it is necessary only because he has committed himself by some roundabout phrasing demanding it for completion; sometimes he commits himself to it by following the inferior method of telling the reader what is inside a character instead of making it plain through what the character says and does and what other characters say and do to him.
The final test for the use of "big words" is the nature of the material or ideas handled. In some cases they are necessary to a degree, sometimes to a great degree. But in practise the nature of the material is generally not correctly assayed, or is mishandled, or the need imagined. The ignorant use them through ignorance; for those with a good knowledge of words it is generally easier to use the "big word," the Latin derivative instead of the simpler Anglo-Saxon.
Is it not therefore more natural and so better for this last class to use the "big word"? That depends on why it is natural—or on whether it is natural or merely habitual. A writer may have come into the use of them, not by natural development but through deliberate effort, a stunt for the sake of seeming learned or being impressive, so that their use, while easy to him, is merely the result of his having made of himself a kind of abnormality—an artificial result of artificial talking and method of thought. On the other hand is the far rarer case of him whose mind naturally expresses itself through polysyllables, generally because of an education from books instead of people. I know one writer who spoke to no one for two years except for the barest necessities because when he used what to him was perfectly natural language the people he met thought he was "stuck up" or showing off.
I do not know why Henry James wrote as he did, but contrast the two following cases:
I once shared an apartment with an ardent admirer of James and as I did not share his admiration we argued frequently. James came to New York while my friend was preparing a bibliography of his idol's works. There was some question as to several early articles or stories that had magazine but not book publication and my friend wrote for the simple information necessary. It could have been given amply and courteously in two or three sentences. The reply was appalling in its totally unnecessary complexity, length and creation of detail, so much so that my friend woke me up to show it to me and joined in my unholy glee. It was, surely, a natural expression, but why was it natural? And certainly it was not adapted to the nature of the material or idea.
Now read the first one hundred and fifty words of A Coward by De Maupassant, even in translation, then write down the things you know about the character described in those few very simple words and you will be amazed at the length of the list.
Consider that De Maupassant and his master Flaubert stand preeminently for unrelenting search for "the one word" and that both of them are characterized by extreme simplicity of presentation. And is any character of Henry James' so much more intricately drawn than "Madame Bovary"?
Among more modern writers take Joseph Conrad. I am a Conrad "fan," but consider him, comparatively speaking, a poor workman though a great artist. Here we have simplicity of words but not of expression in a general sense. I do not by any means fully understand most of his stories and I find that others are about equally at sea if they are honest or are cross-examined. In most of the qualities that make a great fictionist he stands in the front rank, but he is lacking in corresponding ability to simplify and clarify his thought, to make the proper abstraction and selection of thought expressions. His content and gifts are so rich that even only a part of them registered on readers is sufficient to rate him a master, but the fact remains that he conveys only a part of what he has to say. Instead of a direct, clear-cut, simple path to his goal he gives the reader a maze of paths that is not lacking in blind alleys.
Whatever be the generally accepted academic philosophy of simple versus complex expression, it can not outface the fact that the minority of readers can not so fully understand or appreciate complexity and that with them the effectiveness of a story is thereby crippled. Certainly in practise there is crying need for the mastery that can say all yet say it simply. If, instead of straining for complexity, beginners would aim at simplicity, especially of words, they would not only come closer to writing both good magazine stories and good literature, but would find themselves able to "handle" greater and greater complexity of thought and with a precision and effectiveness that can not be equaled by the other method.
Remember that the simple, every-day words are in almost all cases the stronger ones.
Repetition.—Before leaving the subject of clearness as a whole (it will come up again in connection with other subjects), a word might be ventured on repetition. The present horror of it is a badly exaggerated reaction. To repeat without due cause an unusual word or phrase in a short story, or a usual one too close to its first use, is a distraction and therefore harmful to the illusion, but sometimes due cause is ignored. A story, all so clear to its author, presents hundred of facts with which the reader must familiarize himself. The easier you make this for him and the more you insure his getting all the points necessary to a full appreciation of your story, the more fully will your story register on him. To present a vital point once so vividly that it is almost sure to register is best of all and correspondingly difficult to do, but keep your eyes open for cases where repetition, probably not in exactly the same words, will accomplish the same purpose nearly as well and perhaps more surely.
Aside from clearness, in skilful hands repetition can become a most subtle and powerful instrument for dramatic and poetic effects of high literary quality.
CHAPTER VII
OVERSTRAIN
A reader has just so much of attention, interest and appreciation to give to any story and, to hold him in the illusion, it is of the highest importance not to wear him out before you are through with him and not to use him up on minor points or on matters that should put upon him no strain whatever.
Brevity.—Most of all, don't talk too much or too long. A story is never so dead as when buried in words. Most of the stories submitted can be cut to advantage, often very heavily cut. The reader gets worn out waiting for something to happen—is bored by being told in a hundred words what he could have grasped in twenty.
Do not feel that you must give the entire history of the hero's life in a short story; only a certain few incidents and facts have direct bearing and the remainder must be mercilessly cut out. Nor all the scenes and action of any story. Make it your object to have as much as possible happen off-stage; what forces itself to the footlights will probably belong there.
Unclearnesses and Distractions.—Any unclearness or ambiguity or any distraction is of course a profitless strain upon the reader. Don't compel a reader to reason out things that should be clear at a glance. Even the intentional unclearness of subtlety, though by no means a fault, must also be weighed as to disadvantage in strain.
All the points covered in Chapter VI apply in this one.
Sentence Length.—Vary it. If you can, vary it in accordance with variation in emotions of material, in desired effects on reader, but vary it in any case. The very monotony of a long succession of either long or short sentences is wearing.
Don't drag a reader through a sentence so long that in following it he tires out before he can draw mental breath.
Hold Reader to Correct Plot Line.—From first word to last, don't wear him out by letting him cover useless distance over false trails.
Classical and Other References.—In addition to their dangers of distraction and unclearness they force a reader, if they reach him, to picture or consider characters, events and scenes in addition to those of the story. They are of course justified in comparatively rare instances.
Dialect, Archaic Speech, Slang, Foreign, Unusual and Technical Words.—All these offer obstacles to at least part of your audience. To a probable minority dialect is a delight, it is of course necessary to faithful realism, and it undoubtedly gives color. Yet many will not read a dialect story, their chief reason being the labor necessary to understand it. There are, too, those who consciously or unconsciously object to anything foreign, meaning by foreign anything different from their own. It is, for the author, a question of weighing advantages against disadvantages. Archaic speech, as far as strain is concerned, is merely dialect. One writer makes the rule of using the speech of the time in which his story is laid for all periods following and including that of Elizabeth, using modern English for all earlier periods, his argument being that her reign approximately draws the line between speech that is now intelligible with little or no effort and speech that is not. Archaic forms of foreign tongues must be rendered to us in English, so fall under the same rule.
Slang, too, is to be weighed as to advantages and disadvantages. It is perhaps more difficult than in the cases of dialect and archaic speech to compute the proportion of readers to whom it will be sufficiently intelligible. On the other hand, it is generally in itself humorous and therefore of particular value when a humorous effect is desired; gives color; aids in characterization.
The danger of foreign, unusual and technical words is much the same on the score of strain as on the score of distraction and unclearness.
Relief Scenes.—At some point a reader's response to a demand on his emotions ceases and he grows callous to the appeal, but writers often forget this fact and continue to demand long after he has lost his ability to respond. Perfection is to bring him to your climax at the full flood of response, but to do so requires careful handling. A steady, gentle increase of demand is best if you can be absolutely sure of results, but a most useful safeguard is the use of relief scenes. If you've keyed him up to a dangerously high pitch, give him a rest-scene before you add a further call upon his emotions—shift the scene or time and let him look a moment at a quiet landscape or gentle action. Make the change a decided one and you not only rest him but profit by the sharp dramatic contrast between the relief scene and those following and preceding it.*
*Read De Quincey's On the Knocking at the Gate in "Macbeth."
Frames or Brackets.—That is, a story within a story—a story one of whose characters tells the main story. Its advantage is a gain in semblance of reality—if it is handled with sufficient skill. It very seldom is. Its disadvantage is an overstrain, in demanding of the reader that he form two illusions instead of one, and a consequent dividing and weakening of attention. Having accomplished the task of getting clear in his mind one setting and one set of characters, he is forced to take up a new set of characters and probably a new setting, a double strain within the compass of a single story. If, as is often the case, a character in the frame (or several characters) persists in interrupting the course of the inner, the real story, conflict or confusion of illusion is compounded.
Most writers could profit by not attempting the doubly difficult task of a bracketed or framed story. Unless exceptional skill is brought to bear, the frame-story is almost sure either to be too slight and unconvincing or to be made more or less convincing by being developed at such length that it is too serious an encroachment upon space needed for the real story. Yet it is a favorite attempt with those least able to handle it.
Mystery Stories.—These must be considered as a class by themselves, for their deliberate intent is to make the reader strain at solving a puzzle or at following its intricate presentation and solution, and he turns to them at least partly for the mental stimulus involved. Yet overstrain is entirely possible. In fact, this type, by reason of its inherent intricacy and effort for the reader, demands particularly that he be not compelled to strain over points that are non-essential to the mystery proper. Unskilled or unfair writers sometimes intentionally add confusions that are in no way necessary, and many a mystery story lessens its hold on readers by unintended unclearnesses or suggestions that mislead in unnecessary directions and to no purpose. A reader may like to solve puzzles, but he most emphatically has the right to be at all times clear as to just what the puzzle is.
Plot.—Unnecessary intricacy, of course, should be avoided in any type of story; the difficulty in a given case is to draw the line between necessary and unnecessary. But for any writer who has not made very decided progress toward mastering his art a fairly safe rule is to simplify his plot as much as possible. Perhaps that plot might be made more effective if developed in greater intricacy by skilled hands, but his hands are probably not sufficiently skilful and the net result of his attempt is likely to be a reader worn out by too many loosely knit threads of plot. As he grows in skill he will find that more and more intricate plots become—for him—simple plots and therefore to be undertaken with confidence.
CHAPTER VIII
CONVINCINGNESS
Among writers of some experience the rejection of a manuscript for the quite common reason that it is "not convincing" is often considered merely the editor's slipshod, evasive or ignorant excuse given in place of some mysterious real reason or through lack of any definite one. Sometimes it is, but, when honestly and intelligently given, it is the best possible reason for rejection. "Unconvincingness" means definitely and directly that a story fails to impose its illusion—that it is merely words for the reader to look at, not a world for him to live in. It is the death-knell to the illusion.
An editor's failure to give the reasons why it is "not convincing" may be due to his not having analyzed beyond the general effect, but it may be simply because unconvincingness is not easy to reduce to black and white and at best involves far more detail than his time permits him to handle. It is as various and elusive as human nature itself, but the more common causes can be fairly well indicated.
Improbabilities and Impossibilities.—Contradictions and inconsistencies have already been considered in Chapter VI and are to be included under this head. Improbability and impossibility are of course relative terms; a wishing-ring, while an utter impossibility in reality, is not even an improbability in a story of fairies; if the reader accepts the major illusion of fairy-land there will be no difficulty to his accepting the minor illusion of a wishing-ring. But in a story of anything approaching real life absolute conformity to the laws and facts of real life is relentlessly exacted, and in stories dependent upon the acceptance of some fundamental premise, like the reality of fairy-land or the possibility of being transferred into the year 2022, there must be equally relentless conformity to the condition of the premise.
I venture that not twenty per cent. of accepted manuscripts are entirely free from slips of this kind when submitted. Acceptance has been in spite of them, each of them lessened the chances of acceptance, and sufficient increase in their number would have meant rejection by any good magazine. There is, of course, the type of story that depends upon sheer quantity and tenseness of action to carry the reader along, despite all inconsistencies and improbabilities—the "dime novel" type, but all the strain of a bridge should not be upon a single girder.
Improbabilities of Plot.—Too infinite in variety for any attempt at classification. The test in each case must reduce first to, "Could it happen under the conditions?" And the writer—with help from his friends if they can be induced to help in this more practical fashion—must be the judge. Then he must narrow his question to, "Is it so likely to happen that the reader will accept it without hesitation?" Here is the real test and most writers fail to meet it largely because they have not, under the present system of teaching fiction, been trained to measure a story strictly through the reader's eyes. Many a time every editor has been "caught" by an author who wrote back gleefully or vindictively "but it actually happened in real life!" Doubtless, but that doesn't mean anything. It may have happened a thousand times in real life, but if readers can not believe it when they find it in a story it is none the less an improbability in that story, a blow to convincingness, a check to the reader, an injury to the illusion.
I have struggled so often, and so often vainly, to make writers realize this distinction that I come to it now girded for the fray. Can't they see that a fact can not be a fact to a reader if he refuses to consider it a fact? Are they so hopelessly egotistic in their outlook on life that, because an improbable or unusual thing has occurred in their personal experience, it has thereby demonstrated its possibility to every one else? Are they so sickeningly conceited as to be sure that their presentation of the fact is as convincing to others as was the fact itself to them? Are they so imbecile as not to see that "proving" it to an editor after the reading of the story does not in any way prove it to the next or any reader while he is reading it? That, if it were published, they would never have the chance to prove it afterward in the case of readers as they had had in the case of the editor? That readers, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, would not even bother to challenge the author on the point but would merely class him as "punk" and his story as "bunk" and go on to the next in the thousands of stories they read?
Ah, no, it "really happened" somewhere! That ought to be enough for anybody, even if he doesn't know it happened and is convinced that it couldn't and knows mighty well that it is contrary to his own experience!
A leprechawn or a magic carpet can be made entirely convincing as part of the story's illusion by sufficient skill and in the proper setting, while the wonderful drive you and a half-dozen other witnesses saw John R. Smith make, on your club links a week ago Wednesday can, if put into a story, seem nothing whatever but a crude lie. Verily, truth is stranger than fiction—particularly good fiction. Good fiction makes a business of being a little less strange than truth sometimes is, so that it can be believed.
As a matter of fact, a "really happened" incident is likely to need twice the amount of "framing up" that an imaginary but more usual one would require.
The true addict to this stupid and stubborn point of view scorns the simple device, used by his betters, of presenting the unusual as an unusual thing. No, it must be accepted as normal; it happened, you've got to believe it. It doesn't occur to him that it was unusual to him, that he seized upon it as material for that very reason, that it would be equally unusual to the characters in his story and that, really to duplicate or simulate life, he must make his characters register the same surprise and interest that he himself felt as a result of its unusualness. You can make a reader accept something as a remarkable occurrence which he would utterly reject as a normal happening.
For example, take the common case of the very feminine heroine who goes through the author's best hell of horror, desperation, bodily strain and general nerve-shock and, when rescued at its very climax, at once blandly regains almost entire poise and enunciates a very charming love-passage or goes cheerfully and competently about her other business. Most of us know that it is characteristic of the female sex to rise to an emergency strain and collapse or violently react the instant the demand is removed if not before. Consequently said heroine fails to convince. The author's logical correction is to make this heroine conform to general experience, but, if he simply can not or will not change this part of his plot, why not give what convincingness he may by making her show at least some effects of the strain, or making clear that reaction had not yet come, or at least some such crude but comparatively desirable device as "strangely enough"?
Improbabilities of Character.—Like human nature, too various for specific classification. Most writers are capable of at least some understanding of human nature and a weakness along these lines can be partly corrected by a combination of earnest study and sincere care. Failure to draw character convincingly is an absolute limit to success except in the lowest grades of fiction and in such uncommon types of story as are in no way dependent for interest upon fidelity to human nature.
The wire-nerved heroine cited above is an example. Any expression, thought, emotion or act assigned to a character to whom, as drawn, it would not be natural helps destroy the reality of that character—the word "grievously" or "interrelation" in the mouth of an ignorant, illiterate character; a thought of the Virgin Mary in the mind of a Protestant during a crisis; a feeling of pity, not specified as unusual, in a pitiless person; fumbling in an emergency by a man drawn as cool, clear-headed and ready.
Lack of Characterization.—Unless a character is given at least a semblance of individualization he will be unlike any human in real life or else will be like some human viewed from a distant mountain-top or air-ship, in either case unconvincing as a "close up." Yet in the vast majority of submitted manuscripts characters are proper names and nothing more. This will be taken up in the chapter on "Characterization."
Clanking Plots.—"The framework shows through," "you can hear the machinery go round," "artificial"—such plots are like the doggerel whose author does violence to both content and expression in order to get at the ends of lines words that approximate a rhyme. Lack of plot is almost a synonym. Instead of building a plot that is the natural result of character, conditions or conflicting forces, the author draws at will upon the universe at large for whatever elements will lend what he considers strength and effectiveness. Since the law of cause and effect holds in real life, such a plot is unconvincing. In reading even published stories haven't you often found something said or done that was obviously put into the story, not for its intrinsic or relative value, but solely for the plot-purpose of making other things connect and keep moving? And what is the effect upon your belief in the story, upon your illusion?
Hack Plots.—I've forgotten who first said that there are only seven—or is it nine or five?—plots in the world, but, whoever he was, he's done a good deal of damage. With that hopeless dictum looming before their eyes it is not to be wondered at that many writers strive half-heartedly or not at all for originality of plot. Add this to the majority's lack of invention, our ingrained habit of copying and a tendency to take rather than make and you can see why an editor can reject at a glance a large proportion of submitted stories. Like any other reader, he has very thoroughly learned some scores of plots or plot variations and doesn't need to read them any more. Usually the author who turns in a hack plot is the author who has little to offer except plot. And quite often he answers a rejection for hack plot by quoting "there are only five plots in the world anyway." If that is so, five is enough to enable better writers to write better stories.
The patent objection to hack plots is that they have outworn, with all but the newest and most elemental readers, the power to hold in illusion, therefore demanding an extra amount of excellence in other factors. There is also the objection that this very repetition of a formula identified with fiction, particularly poor fiction, gives them at once the flavor of fiction instead of real life, and successful illusion is thus made extremely difficult.
As a lonely little plea in behalf of wearied editors, couldn't you arrange, when you wish to shoot or stab a character without removing him entirely, to wound him somewhere else than in the shoulder? The bullet that proved merely to have glanced off the skull is also rather overworked. And must you turn for help to overheard conversations?
Coincidence.—Coincidence is such a favorite device for attaining a hack plot, a clanking plot and improbability in general that it calls for a separate and emphatic warning. A reader's credence for coincidences is strictly limited, especially if they are presented as matters of course.
Hack Style.—Objectionable for the same reason as hack plot. The inevitable connotation of hack words and phrases is of the "writing game," of the printed page, of stories sold for money, not of real life—too "magaziney" to be successful in holding illusions in which magazines can have practically no place. Each hack phrase, moreover, is a lost opportunity for a right phrase that would have added to effectiveness. Also, readers are just plain tired of them.
Frames or Brackets and First-Person Narratives.—Guard against letting the frame-story character who tells the real story talk so long, fluently and perfectly that readers will note the impossibility of his performing such a feat in real life. First-person narratives, not in a frame, generally avoid this impossibility by having the narrative written instead of spoken; otherwise they run the same danger. Most of all, don't let the narrator abandon his own speech for that of the author himself. He generally does.
Dialect, Slang, Foreign Words.—All these, rightly used, tend toward convincingness of color and character, but their effectiveness is often measured by suggestion rather than quantity. Broad Scotch dialect at full strength will give a very Scotch atmosphere, for example, but many readers will refuse to enter that atmosphere or will become lost in it if they do enter. Often idiom is a more effective device than dialect.
Ignorance of Material: Mistakes.—There is, heaven knows, just ground for the belief that writers are given to writing of things with which they are not sufficiently familiar. Instead of using the material they know best, as a class they are too prone to select the material they'd like to know about but don't. Also to feign a scholarliness they don't possess or to attempt a style they have not mastered.
Lack or loss of faith in the author is as great a catastrophe as lack or loss of belief in the story. Irritation against him is still more fatal. If you have any doubt, an editor's mail would dispel it. Nothing brings so many or such bitter protests from readers as a mistake in handling local color. Mark that well, you who "take a chance" because you think you can—and often do—"get away with it." Not only do you underestimate the irritation, sometimes amounting to a virulence that remembers you and follows you with hostility through your other stories, but your ignorance of setting, local color, material blinds you to the infinite possibility for unconscious mistakes that are instantly detected by those who know and make you ridiculous in their eyes.
Your dialect, slang and foreign quotations gain you no color if you make mistakes in them. Classical, historical and fictional references, or "big words" in English, if incorrectly used, give you no reputation for scholarliness. Having your villain run lightly away with more dollars in gold or dust than he could lift from the ground or using an "automatic revolver" does not impress readers with your knowledge of what you write about. Giving Brazilians Spanish as their native tongue produces very unlocal color. A negro strain in a pure-blooded Creole shows no knowledge of types.
Add to these the mistakes considered in the chapter on "Distractions," add all the other mistakes of which the uninformed human brain is capable, and then take up your heavy burden of becoming thoroughly familiar with the material you use in stories. A month or two in a locality will not give to any save a Kipling sufficient familiarity for safety. Most writers think it will. And, whatever you do, don't fool with fire-arms or with anything pertaining to ships until you have become a real authority! I speak from bitter experience; editor, as well as writer, becomes the target for almost venomous ire. And no detail is too tiny for detection and wrath. The picture of a grizzly bear on a magazine cover brought a vicious indictment because, while a grizzly has six toes, not five, he does not show the sixth toe especially when in the position depicted.
The convincingness of a story as a whole, then, is dependent upon many detailed factors and there is some excuse for the editor who does not give the analyzed reasons for his verdict of "unconvincing."
Such a weakness is due, on one hand, to ignorance, deliberate indifference or almost criminal carelessness or, on the other hand, to failure to visualize clearly from the point of view of the reader. The most practical remedy, for both classes of causes, is, aside from the writer's own efforts, a fundamental change in teaching methods, putting far more emphasis upon training writers to habitual and very anxious consideration of the reader's actual reactions to every least stimulus in a story.
CHAPTER IX
HOLDING THE READER
While most points that bear here fall more directly under other headings, some definitely belong in this chapter. And, though I know of no recipe for being interesting, there are certain things that may be of help to that effort.
Being Dramatic.—All stories, to be interesting, I think, must be dramatic, in the broader sense of the word, both in style and in selection and recombination of material. The very demand for unity and structure is a demand for the dramatic, the dramatic quality being largely a matter of position and contrast, and a baldly unemotional or matter-of-fact style can be strongly dramatic through its contrast with the emotional material handled. However, lest I be confounded by the philosophers, I'll discard "Being Dramatic" and attempt instead, suggestions as to "being interesting," not with any idea of covering the subjects completely but rather, (as in much of this book), calling attention to points on which writers prove themselves particularly weak in actual practise and which seem to call for more attention in teaching methods.
Suspense.—The chief warning needed is not to spoil it after you've secured it. Over and over again a writer ruins his reader's suspense by betraying the plot in advance and making a surprise impossible. Sometimes it is inadvertent, but often it is deliberately done by at least a general statement or hint of outcome prefaced with some such phrase as "little did I know then that," "could he have known," "in the light of what followed there was no need for my next step," etc., or even more baldly betraying, say, the outcome of an entire book whose interest is at least partly based on whether hero wins heroine, by such as "Now, with Nita and our children sitting by me as I write, my doubts seem foolish ones."
To me one of the most amazing faults in the entire repertoire is the flat betrayal of plot by the chapter headings. Why do it? Is it merely a slip due to concentration on the really nerve-racking task of choosing an interesting and pertinent title for the chapter? Or is the habit of not measuring by the reader's reactions so strong that in so prominent and spectacular a place a writer does not even note that he has advertised in advance to readers the very thing he should be trying to keep as a surprise?
Surprises.—Be sure they are legitimate. It is one thing to shape a story so that the reader will expect other than what is to happen, but quite another for you to tell him definitely that he is to expect the other. Yet some writers do this.
Mystery.—Naturally, play upon human curiosity and the human hunting-instinct whenever opportunity offers, but, as in the case of surprises, be sure your mystery structure and detail play fair with the reader. Here, too, you may give him false scents to follow, for he accepts them as part of the game, but, to change the figure, be sure that the ladder by which the goal is finally reached has no rungs missing. And in heaven's name don't fog your story with the needless mysteries of careless unclearness and confusion when nothing but irritation is to be gained by it.
Overstrain.—Already covered. But some of its points demand extra attention for the sake of dramatic effect.
Light and Shade.—Their proper use is essential to mastery of dramatic effect. Just as a square of black on a white sheet stands out far blacker and stronger than on a black one, just so does a strong scene stand out stronger if preceded and perhaps followed by a quiet scene than if merely one in a succession of strong scenes. Such a succession, properly handled for cumulative effect and steady rise to a climax, may as a whole be stronger than an alternation of strong and quiet, but such a succession is itself a unit and as such subject to the general law. There is always the danger of overstrain in its use.
The above applies, of course, to the elements within a scene, in the make-up of a character, or in anything else. For example, the traits of a character all good or all bad are not so vivid as those of a character partly good and partly bad—nor is the character so natural.
The element of unexpectedness in the sense of particularly sudden surprise is extremely effective by reason of the sharp contrast involved.
Repression.—Often more effective than expression of emotion, for the fundamental reason, particularly in the case of emotion felt by a character, that, however strong the emotion, repression means the addition of something sufficiently stronger to master it and of a struggle for the mastery, even though neither is definitely described in the story. There is contrast between emotion and will, between the expression to be expected and the absence of it, perhaps between one character's repression and another's lack of it. In the case of repression by the author in the general handling of a scene an advantage lies in his giving to each reader opportunity to fill out the emotion in whatever way is most satisfying and natural to each from the mere skilful stimulus furnished by the author. If this advantage seems slight, consider the drawings for an illustrated story. In how many cases does the artist's conception of characters, scene and expression coincide with that of a reader? Supposing it were possible for the artist to furnish only such suggestions as would enable each reader to fill out a picture in accordance with his own conception, would not each reader find it more satisfying? Incidentally, would it be a higher form of art?
Also there is enough of the Anglo-Saxon in our national character to implant in perhaps most of us an impulse to run away from too free expression of emotion. A reader's impulse to run away from a story does not add to its effectiveness.
Certainly repression of emotion in the sense of condensing the number of words used in expression could be practised to great advantage by the majority of writers.
But, first, last and always, remember that repressing emotion should seldom mean annihilating. Perhaps the correct idea is shown by contrasting a spiral spring compressed to its least space and greatest potential force with the same spring spent from being sprung, or with the absence of a spring.
Omitting Scenes.—A story is at bottom a selection of certain bits of material from an almost infinite number of bits or, put the other way, the rejection of all material except the salient bits. Dramatic effect is often increased by keying the process of selection and abstraction to a more rigid scale, even rejecting comparatively salient bits. For example, a whole scene, though fitting into the story's development, may lend greater effectiveness to the whole by being inferred instead of enacted on stage.
Condensation.—It is safe to say that many writers could make most of their stories not only more dramatic but more effective in general by greater condensation. Those of you, especially, who aim for popularity rather than the judgment of posterity should remember that we live in an age of motion-pictures, that one of their chief characteristics is speed, and that our youth are growing up with that speed more or less fixed in their minds as a standard for all narrative or expository art. What will they, consequently, demand of fiction? Are they becoming impatient of what we have considered the normal speed of fiction narrative? Just as they, and perhaps we older ones, are already inclined to impatience over Cooper, Scott and Dickens, perhaps because steam and electricity have keyed us to a faster gait. Do you not find boys who will throb over a movie of The Last of the Mohicans or The Three Musketeers, but who can not be induced to wade through these stories in book form as you and I so gladly waded? Is it merely that youth welcomes the quicker path and that these same youths will in more mature years turn to the more leisurely presentation? Even so, a slower speed may be losing them as audience while they are ripening sufficiently to prefer it.
On the other hand, do motion-pictures overfeed us with speed so that we turn with relief to the more leisurely methods of fiction?
I venture no final conclusion, but certainly the narrative art as a whole moves faster than it did twenty or even ten years ago. Here is opportunity for some college classes in fiction or psychology to contribute exceptionally valuable data through laboratory or field experiments covering at least a part of the ground.
Meanwhile there is no doubt that, by either old or new standard, most writers would profit by more condensation. There is no surer way of boring a reader than by talking too much, and even honey or strong drink can be diluted until it has neither strength nor flavor. And remember, class-rooms, in judging this point from published stories, that the editor has frequently done the writer's condensing for him because of the story's need or the limitations of space.
Short vs. Long Words and Sentences.—Remember that in tense moments or under extreme emotion most men resort to short, simple, Anglo-Saxon words and brief sentences. Remember that therefore short words and sentences are likely to be in themselves more tense and dramatic and, though not so generally, more emotional.
Remember, too, the need of avoiding monotony from any word- or sentence-length.
Handling, Setting, Color and Character.—Holding the reader is essentially a matter of not being dull and there is no sovereign cure for dullness, but the following device will go a long way toward avoiding it.
Instead of giving the reader setting and local color in discouragingly large pieces, weave them into the action. An old device, to be sure, but one much too little used. Instead of describing a vast plain, let a character ride over it, speak of it or think of it, thus at the same time developing scenery, character and action for the reader. If you wish to picture the plain's vegetation, incorporate some of it as even a very minor plot-factor—have the rider pluck some of it, have his horse's progress impeded by it, hide another character behind it. There are a thousand ways of thus accomplishing more than one thing at once. But remember, too, that a reader must be given his general bearings as soon as he enters a story.
Hack Work.—Anything in your story, except material itself, that has been used until threadbare by countless writers before you is "hack stuff" and has small chance of holding your reader, for the perfectly simply reason that he's tired of it before he reads it. Whether a matter of plot or diction and no matter how good it was in the beginning, it is a handicap that only a master can turn into an asset. Avoid, however, the opposite extreme of being different to such an extent or so clumsily that your effort is obvious. I know of no recipe for avoiding "hack stuff"—no more than for avoiding lack of individuality and other little matters of that kind, but surely a writer of even moderate discernment can detect and correct this fault in some degree by taking pains to note and avoid the elements that recur most frequently in poor or mediocre fiction. Unfortunately most writers begin by copying (unconscious copying, while more ethical, is harder to correct than is deliberate copying) and your natural copier is not likely to be overly intelligent in choice of models.
Titles and Chapter Headings.—This subject is too large for discussion here, since it involves the psychology of both fiction and advertising, but three rules can be given: (1) Aim at the very heart of the subject-matter for your general title idea; (2) don't let them betray too much in advance, but make them "lure"; (3) select chapter heads with almost as much care as titles, for they are of great psychological importance.